bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2006) — Summer 2006 // Été 2006, pp. 40–43
Liebnitz cautiously entered Java: the Hut. A 300-pound Elton John lookalike in a lime green body suit lurked at a table in the corner, reading the Irrational Hurled Trombone through opal-frame shades. A muscular tigure in a leopard skin loincloth swung over on a vine, deposited a glass mug on the table and had time to announce “Your toasted iguana frappuccino, sir” before slamming into a giant ficus. “Nice one,” said the ace logician. “You and Don Gordo fit so well into the California ambience that I would never have recognized you, but that entrance was unmistakable. Are you all right?” “Never better, sir,” replied Manitoba Jones, leaping to his feet and knocking a waiter onto a pastry cart, which carried him screaming into the alligator pool. “Since they started refusing full-grown trees as carryon, I’ve been taking every chance to shake them down. I think that one was bugged.” “It was,” snarled Don Gordo, picking caterpillars out of his coffee. “Remind me to introduce you to my tarantulas someday.”
Having checked that the alligators were vegan, Liebnitz pulled the others into a huddle. “It started at the Centre. Human Resources has been working on a new entrance exam. It doesn’t measure competencies — that would defy the new policies forbidding discrimination based on intelligence, experience or capability. Instead, it is designed to weed out those that won’t fit in. The multiple choice questions have no right answers, only varying degrees of wrong — ignorance won’t sink you but irreverence will. The cryptanalysis section is a loyalty test — if you can read it but fail to denounce it to the invigilator, you don’t make the cut. The mistake HR made was to beta-test it on Felix Africa and Inspector Wu. When they realized what was in front of them, they smuggled out a copy under a piece of fruitcake in Wu’s lunchbox — no one looks too closely at a cannibal’s lunch — and grabbed the first plane out. Unfortunately, it was a charter for Elvis impersonators on their way to Los Angeles. It was three days be tore our guys recovered consciousness. And by then, Riaito Sleazewagon had them.”
“Sleazewagon!” exclaimed Don Gordo. “What interest would he have in our exams?” “None,” said Liebnitz. “He’s here in LA for a different reason, but when he saw Felix and the Inspector in those rhinestone jumpsuits, he assumed they were on to him.” Jones asked, “What’s he really here for?” Liebnitz replied, “He’s close to patenting the Y chromosome, the one that makes men from women. If he pulls it off, half the human race will have to pay him just for breathing — much less breeding. And the options for repossession don’t bear thinking about.” “That’s ridiculous,” snorted Don Gordo. “You can’t patent something that three billion people are walking around with, something that only God had anything to do with creating.” “That’s why he’s here,” replied Liebnitz. “LA is a centre for sequencing the human genome — and it’s also the headquarters ot over halt the registered rellgions in the world. If he can get the sign-off trom both sides — well, you should see some of the things that are already patented in this country.”
“So, how do we stop him? And how do we get Felix and the Inspector back?” asked Jones. “If we are lucky,” said the ace logician. “We can do both at once. Sleazewagon is meeting tonight with the most influential televangelist in the city, Jerry Lee Stemwinder, the key to the whole patent scam. And our two colleagues are being heid in the same building.” “How do we know that?” asked Don Gordo. “Because the boys managed to smuggle a clue out to us in a pizza box sent to the recycling station — standard procedure 153A. To ensure that the wrong people didn’t get the information, they encrypted their location using the same cypher as the exam — and sent us the exam as a guide.” From a plastic envelope, Liebnitz pulled a sheet of paper stained with fruitcake and anchovies. “There are 22 numbered questions. You link up each number with the letter in front of the least-worst answer. Then you use that pairing to substitute letters into the number strings of the loyalty cypher. Some questions are pretty obscure, but you can also work the other way by making guesses on the cypher and checking them against the limited options in the questions. Word counts are a good place to start on deciphering, for example, with E generally the commonest letter in a message and T, A, 1, O, N and S also among the high frequencies. Once we’ve verified the cipher, we use it to decipher the private message written on the back.” Liebnitz turned over the page and pointed to a series of characters written in candied cherry: 1-19-10-5-17 PIP 20-3-4-19-3 P, 13-2-4-19-7 15-6-8-19-3 11-3-5-6-21 7-15-3 15. “In this case,” he added, “I assume that since numbers stand for letters, then the letters stand for numbers.”
Entrance
Examination
Part I: General Knowledge
1. In an international negotiation, according
to a noted expert, the phrase “we will
give your proposal every consideration”
means:
(X) we accept your proposal
(G) we reject your proposal
(L) we will pass the buck to headquarters
for a decision
(P) we will feed your proposal to a goat
2. One of Shakespeare’s sonnets begins,
“Shall I compare thee to:
(A) a bale of hay?
(P) a ricochet?
(V) a cheese souffle?
11) none of the above
3. Thomas King’s First Nations private eye
is named:
(0) Jay Silverheels
(E) Thumps DreadfulWater
(S) Little Big Man
(W) Joe Leaphorn
4. Was Ohio Express’s big 1967 hit:
(Q) You Ain’t Nothing but a Warthog?
(R) Yummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love in
My Tummy)?
(Z) Take My Hand (I’m a Stranger in
Hackensack)?
(E) Nobody Loves You When You’re Kilgore
Trout?
The Terror of Tiny Town was:
(K) the first all-midget musical western
(D) the last all-midget musical western
(J) repeatedly voted among the worst
movies of all time
(L) all of the above
5. Elvis Costello once said that writing
about music was:
(I) even more fun than a weekend with
Diana Krall
(P) even less fun than a weekend with
George Bush
(0) like dancing about architecture
(D) like being locked in a broom closet with
John Diefenbaker on acid
7. A Aalto was born in:
(B) Walla Walla
(A) Bora Bora
(T) Tanu Tuva
(N) Flin Flon
8. Which of the following is NOT a town in
Newfoundland?
(U) Lower Spasmodic
(Y) Joe Batt’s Arm
(C) Leading Tickles
(H) Little Seldom
9. Complete the following line from Rocky
Raccoon by the Beatles: “Her name was
McGill and she called herself Lil,”
(F) but her Christian name was Mrs. Earl
(D) but everyone knew her as Nancy
(M) so as not to be confused with the
university of the same name
(Q) for no apparent reason
10. According to Raymond Chandler, the best
way to move a stuck plot forward is to
have someone burst into the room holding:
(A) a gun
(B) a meeting with Al Capone or possibly
Al Gore
(Z) his breath until he turns purple
(N) hands with J. Edgar Hoover in a tutu
11. Some years ago, a magazine contest
asked readers to complete the following
phrase: As American as apple pie, as
French as the Eiffel Tower, as Canadian
???? The winning entry was:
(S) as a walrus popsicle
(F) as saying thank you to an ATM
(J) as going to the fights and having a
hockey game break out
(B) as possible, under the circumstances
12. The New York Times reportedly once held
a contest for the most boring headline.
Which of the following was the winner?
(F) Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
(W) Elevator Industry Has Ups and Downs
(C) Nature of Reality Remains in Doubt
(G) Reintarnation: Coming Back as a
Hillbilly?
13. Which among the choices for the previ-
ous question was the example used by
the Times in setting its contest, which
it later declared to be more boring than
any of the actual entries?
14. Which of the following did Mackenzie
King NOT do:
(M) consult his mother on tough decisions,
even after her death
(H) decide that Ottawa had insufficient
ruins, and import some
(1) come back from a visit to describe
Hitler as a peaceful man of no territorial
ambition
(G) say in an early debate on Medicare
coverage, “Prescriptions if necessary
but not necessarily prescriptions”
15. When informed by a young boy that he
wanted to be Prime Minister of Canada
when he grew up, Stephen Leacock:
(H) replied, “Son, why limit your horizons
early?”
(U) congratulated him on his patriotic aims
and called an exorcist
(Y) cautioned him that politics was a dirty
game, especially if done right
(K) flung himself upon his horse and rode
madly off in all directions
16. The Canadian one dollar coin has a loon
on it:
(R) as a satirical comment on the PM of
the day
(X) as a serious comment on the PM of
the day
(K) because someone lost the die with the
original design
(C) proving that you shouldn’t let the Royal
Canadian Air Farce anywhere near
the Mint
7. In Sir John A. Macdonald’s day, federal
ballots had to list each candidate’s
profession. One that he used later in
his career was:
(T) cask tester
(1) spiritualist
(M) cabinetmaker
(Z) dancer at Chippendale’s
8. A well-known British musician was once
heard to say, “We’re not the kind of people
I’d want my woman to hang around.” This
referred to a close encounter between:
(N) Margaret Trudeau and the Rolling
Stones
(Q) Margaret Thatcher and Kiss
(E) the Queen and Queen
(W) Courtney Love and the Berlin
Philharmonic
19. If you got the masks and makeup off the
heavy metal group Lordi, you would find:
(U) the same faces underneath
(S) five dudes from Finland
(R) Jimmy Hoffa
(J) the Berlin Philharmonic
20. The winning entry as Canada’s most
contrived joke of the past year involved:
(Y) writing a film script on German sausage
skins to get a wurst case scenario
(L) combining IBM and LSD to invent the
business trip
(0) convincing a 1920s author to go into
photography as F Stop Fitzgerald
(V) none of the above, as there is no
such contest (anyway, no-one felt like
competing with the election)
21. The Norwegian blue parrot:
(J) is not kipping
(A) would be pushing up daisies if it wasn’t
nailed to the perch
(P) has rung down the curtain and joined
the choir invisible
(W) all of the above
22. The current leadership campaign:
(R) can best be described as a complete
shambles
(O) can best be described as an incomplete
shambles
(Y) should not be described at all, as
politicians have long memories
(K) appears to combine the naive simplic-
ity of War and Peace, the high moral
tone of The Godfather and the earnest
solemnity of Blazing Saddles
Part II: Decryption
21-310-4-3 14-6-2-18-14 7-6 11-3 14-6-20-3-
4-18-3-9 21-15-3-7-15-3-4 21-3 5-2-16-3 2-7
6-4 18-6-7.
2-72-198-17-68-197-6 19-3-3 7-6 2-7 7-15-
10-721-310-4-3 14-6-20-3-4-18-3-9 18-6
21-6-4-19-3 7-15-10-18 2-19 10-11-19-6-5-8-
7-3-5-22 18-3-12-3-19-19-10-4-22.
21-317-8-19-77-15-3-4-3-13-6-4-3 12-6-18-
12-3-4-186-8-4-19-3-5-20-3-19 21-2-7-15
1-6-5-2-7-2-12-19….
7-6 17-2-7-2-14-10-7-3 10-19 13-10-4 10-19
1-6-19-19-2-11-5-37-15-3 9-10-17-10-14-3 9-
6-18-3 11-227-15-3 17-10-9-18-3-19-19 6-13
6-8-44-8-5-3-4-19.
Soon the decryptions were done. “A biblical reference, how apt,” commented Liebnitz. That night, a black figure scaled the wall of a Hollywood hacienda. Silently, he unfolded a rope ladder from his backpack, tied it to a turret and dropped it outside. Soon the corpulent form of Don Gordo puffed into sight. Jones heaved him the last few feet, lost his balance under the don’s sudden surge and cascaded noisily through a large jacaranda into the garden. instantly, he bounced to his feet, dusted off his hands and shouted, “No terrorists in that tree, either!” Just then a massive Rottweiler dashed around the corner of the house and Jones froze. The dog leaped at his throat, only to be distracted by the sudden descent of Don Gordo, whose landing threatened to activate the San Andreas fault, and scared the dog into a faint. A nearby gate creaked open and a dark figure passed through, “If you’ve finished that Laurel and Hardy routine… The gate wasn’t locked, so let myself in.”
Casing the hacienda from the outside with tracking instruments, the three located Wu and Felix in a small pantry off the kitchen. Affixing a silent mine to the wall and warning their friends to take cover, they detonated the charge, resulting in a vast white cloud. Felix and the inspector stumbled out, coughing. Everyone agreed that it would have been better if the tracers had been able to pinpoint the flour bin ahead of time. The rescued pair were woozy, so they were left in the kitchen to recover. The others crepe-soled the house until they found Sleazewagon’s study and eavesdropped. The deal between the arch-villain and his aerodynamically coifed partner was almost done.
Liebnitz stepped into the room. “I won’t waste my time trying to persuade you, Sleazewagon, to halt this charade, but allow me to appeal to you, sir, as a man of God, not to go along with it. Think what it will mean for your congregation, many of them poor. Ask yourselt what Jesus would say to this kind of scam.” “He hasn’t complained so far,” chuckled the preacher, “And besides, I don’t believe in chromosomes or genetics or Darwin. Intelligent design is my answer. This good man is prepared to make a substantial, I say substantial, donation to the First Church of the Cayman Islands in order to corner the market on something I can’t even see — why should I stand in his way? What could convince me to do so?”
Independently operated – 30 Years Just then, Felix Africa and Inspector Wu swayed into the room and silently stared around. The preacher’s mouth dropping at the two spectrally-powdered figures in tattered white rhinestone jumpsuits. “Elvis!” he cried out. “Why have you come back?” Memories of the long flight flickered in refried brains. To their own air guitar work, the two broke into song, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time. Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.” Then they segued into a long reprise of Jailhouse Rock before tumbling back down the stairs and out of sight. Staggering over to the French doors, the preacher said, “Sorry, Sleazewagon, I have been vouchsafed a revelation this night and will not be falling in with your schemes.”
Sleazewagon cursed and slunk off to plot elsewhere. Felix and the Inspector recovered their senses with no memory of having channelled Elvis. They scanned the exam and blogged it to the Internet, which spiked that proposal. Manitoba Jones and Don Gordo played a little involuntary tag with the awakened Rottweiler before flying over the wall by (but without) the seat of their pants. Liebnitz sighed and left by the gate.
Can you duplicate the ace logician’s feat by working out what the cherry-drafted message on the back of the exam says? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all the correct answers received by November 15, 2006. The winner will get a book prize autographed by A Aalto. Not necessary for the solution, but can you also (a) decipher the loyalty text; (b) give the name of its author (whose full name can be spelled with only the letters represented by I through 10 in the cypher); and (c) explain how Liebnitz used the message to find Sleazewagon’s hacienda?
Free-lance prestidigitator A Aalto wrote the
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2006) — Summer 2006 // Été 2006, pp. 40–43. Read the rest of this issue →
